Who we are
We are a team of highly skilled and experienced lawyers, with 95% of our lawyers being at the Principal and Senior Associate level.
In contrast to many law firms, we do not have a ‘pyramid’ structure with a few skilled Partners and Directors at the top, and then cascading levels of experience down to a bottom level of mostly junior people. Rather we aim for the opposite. Our specific strategy, and one of our points of difference in WA, is that we have actively created an entire team of top level / experienced lawyers. Our lawyers advise professional industry bodies, sit on business boards, teach at WA law schools, and sit on committees advising the courts how to improve efficiencies. Our experience spans property advice on large scale developments, to fighting and winning some of WA’s leading cases.
Cullen Macleod is the trading name of the company CM Legal Pty Ltd. Our company structure includes the following positions:
Directors
The Directors of Cullen Macleod are Rick Cullen and Catriona Macleod. They are the only shareholders, no other party has any shareholding or equity in the company. Rick and Catriona have responsibility for the conduct of the professional affairs of the Firm.
Principals
The Principals of the Business are our most senior legal practitioners. The Firm has confidence in each Principal supervising, managing and administering practice areas, task force teams and assisting in the day to day management and operations of the Firm. The Principals are not shareholders of Cullen Macleod and do not otherwise hold any equity in the business.
Special Counsel
The Special Counsel of the Firm comprise the balance of our most senior legal practitioners that are not Principals. The Business has confidence in our Special Counsel to supervise, manage and administer the commercial and corporate practice areas and consult to the Principals on the day to day management and operations of the Firm.
Senior Associates
We appoint experienced legal practitioners (generally more than 5 years’ post admission experience – thereby qualifying as “Senior Practitioners” under the various Costs Determinations set pursuant to the Act) to the position of Senior Associate. Our Senior Associates interface between the Principals, Special Counsel and other staff. They assist in the day to day supervision and the management and training of our talented junior legal practitioners.
Associates
Our Associates are talented junior legal practitioners and are promoted to reflect their attainment of a measurable level of experience and progression.
Solicitors
We recruit talented and driven legal practitioners both from graduate positions whom we identify as sharing our ethos, passion for excellence and commitment to our clients. They assist senior practitioners of the Firm to implement and deliver legal solutions for our clients.
Consultants
In addition to the above roles we have specialist Consultants in our practice. Our Consultants are legal practitioners who do not practice with, and may not be employed by, the Firm on a full-time basis but are available to assist our clients when the need arises. This can be on an independent contractor or otherwise basis.
Overall, we are a team of 32 real people, with lives and interests inside, and outside, the legal and business communities in WA. We are personally involved in a variety of businesses and industries from the wine industry to property investment.
We believe that success is a result of the right people who have the right attitude. These are people who enjoy being lawyers, who like working at Cullen Macleod, who enjoy continuous learning, who are quick thinkers and problem solvers. These are the people that you can trust to assist you and make your particular transaction or issue a successful one.